Mumbai: Worsening air quality in Mumbai this month has prompted the Bombay High Court to question the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) management of the crisis, compelling the civic body to take “concrete steps”, while MP from the ruling Shiv Sena, Milind Deora, also raised concerns and questioned the government’s approach on pollution.
On Thursday, High Court Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar slammed the Maharashtra government for stating that volcanic ash from Ethiopia was the reason behind the city’s worsening Air Quality Index (AQI).
“No, no… that was only two days ago. Even before that, we couldn’t see beyond 500 metres,” he said, taking up suo motu the matter of rising air pollution across Mumbai. The court also directed the BMC to take “concrete steps” to check pollution.
As of Thursday afternoon, Mumbai’s AQI capped at 196, the highest this month, while nine areas exceeded the 200 mark, according to the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) website. These were Borivali East, Mulund West, CBD Belapur, Nerul-Navi Mumbai, Chembur (TISS), Andheri East, Bandra East, IMD-Colaba and Mazgaon. Of these, Mulund West and Mazgaon crossed the 250 AQI mark, reaching 258 and 259, respectively.
The Mazgaon area, Mumbai’s industrial hub, saw the AQI reaching 305 twice this month, on 11 and 24 November.
Rajya Sabha MP Milind Deora posted on X that “Mumbai’s air pollution crisis is no longer a seasonal issue – it is a public-health emergency. India needs a nationwide war & a national consensus against air pollution”.
“It is my duty as your MP to stand with you on this growing concern. I have written to the BMC Commissioner urging immediate and extraordinary action, including a temporary halt on all digging and construction work until air quality improves.”
A meteorologist at the Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) in Mumbai told ThePrint that ash from the volcano in Ethiopia was not the reason behind the haze in the city. “We believed it to be so but the winds had shifted north, towards China. The volcanic ash has nothing to do with the poor AQI,” he said.
Amid the surging pollution levels, the BMC Thursday issued a “stop work” notice to 53 construction sites for violating the civic body’s air pollution control guidelines in the city and its suburban areas.
Of the 53 notices, 17 were issued at construction sites in Worli, five in Mazgaon and the rest in Malad (West), as these three locations recorded the highest AQI levels, crossing 250, in the first half of this week.
The BMC is also implementing a ‘Road Cleanliness and Dust Control Campaign’ from 28 to 30 November. Under this, the solid waste management department will give priority to deep cleaning of roads, with the help of water tankers, misting machines and other mechanical equipment and plants.
To ensure that the guidelines set for pollution control are strictly followed, the municipal corporation has appointed flying squads at all administrative divisions (wards). Each squad includes two civic engineers and a police officer with a vehicle tracing and monitoring system.
Meanwhile, MLA and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray took to X and said: “Even as the AQI of Mumbai gets terrible each day, and we compete with Delhi in the ‘terrible AQI’ race, the governments from top to bottom, currently controlled by the BJP and its allies conveniently ignore the plight of the people.”
“In Mumbai, builders and contractors are a priority for the BJP govt, while apart from the construction and demolitions works, tree felling in the name of ‘development’ is the new mantra of the BJP,” he added.
BMC commissioner Bhushan Gagrani spoke about the efforts being undertaken by the civic body to check pollution.
“For the last few days, pollution levels (AQI) at Navy Nagar in Colaba also crossed 250. The reason: there are four construction sites operating at the same time. Today, we have called them personally and warned them to reduce the pollution they are causing,” he told ThePrint.
“We are constantly keeping track of the AQI level and calling up ward offices in areas that show a spike and trying to keep the construction sites in check,” he added.
Also Read: How an ash cloud produced by a volcanic eruption in Ethiopia reached India
Why the haze
The RMC meteorologist told ThePrint there are two main reasons for the haze in the city: temperature inversion and low wind speeds.
Temperature inversion means that the normal pattern of air temperature decreasing with increasing altitude is reversed. This coupled with low wind speed traps the air and stagnates pollutants closer to the ground.
“Normally as you go towards the troposphere, with an increase in altitude, the air starts getting cooler, and as the warmer air rises, the pollutants are dispersed in the air above. What we see now is the opposite. A cooler layer of air is trapped under a warmer layer, locking the toxic gases in the visibility zone, close to the ground,” he explained.
“This usually happens after monsoons and during peak winters,” he said, adding that the air should clear in the next few days.
Both the RMC and BMC attribute the toxic air to construction work leaving open debris and exposed soil on the side of the roads along with vehicular emissions.
A senior officer at the BMC said: “Trucks carrying construction material and debris travel unsupervised during the night with no one to check how they are carrying the material. This adds to toxic pollutants found in the air in the early hours of the day.”
“Although road construction is a linear process with several entities involved and cannot be stopped completely, the zonal offices will be tasked with implementing necessary steps like prevention of open debris on the roads and mandatory barricading around dug-up roads.”
BMC crackdown
Ashwini Joshi, Additional Municipal Commissioner (AMC) for Mumbai, along with the Environment and Climate Change Department and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), a thinktank appointed for development of a centralised pollution monitoring dashboard, earlier this month shortlisted 15 vendors to install sensor-based air quality monitoring systems at under-construction sites in Mumbai and its suburbs.
A total of 662 sensor-based AQI measuring plants have been installed at the sites, while the process of installing 251 plants is on. A total of 400 plants have been linked to the dashboard prepared for integrated data collection.
Joshi Thursday reviewed the status of the AQI measuring plants at construction sites and found 117 of the 662 inactive. He warned that if any plant was found to be inactive, strict action would be taken against the officials concerned through the 95 flying squads appointed at the ward level.
Areas with high AQI levels throughout the week, such as Borivali (East), Malad (West), Chakala-Andheri (East), Deonar, Mazgaon, Navy Nagar-Colaba, Mulund (West) and Powai, should undergo extensive cleaning to improve the air quality, she told the media.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also Read: Northeast is the new pollution hotspot. South has the cleanest air, says report